Could the age of self-service BI (business intelligence) finally be near? And, if so, are organizations ready?

For years, BI vendors have promised a way for managers to easily build their own reports from scratch, without the help of IT staff. Now, with the release of Microsoft Office 2010, managers are finding they can do these tasks using a powerful new Excel feature, called PowerPivot. And, by its ease of availability if nothing else, this feature is promising to shake up the field of BI.

"It will spread like wildfire. As organizations upgrade to Office 2010, Excel users will adopt PowerPivot, whether the [IT staff] likes it or not," said Gartner analyst Rita Sallam.